The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London has received a grant of £4.3m to restore galleries housing its collection of European ceramics, furniture and woodwork, sculpture, textiles and fashion dating from 1600 to 1800 back to their original Victorian design.

A further £4.65m has been awarded to London’s Design Museum to enable its move into a new home at the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington. And the Tank Museum in Dorset has been awarded £2.5m for a new vehicle conservation centre to display and care for 130 “at risk” vehicles.

Carole Souter, chief executive of the HLF, said: “As the largest source of funding for capital investment in museums and galleries, HLF is ensuring that museums large and small from across the UK continue to attract record numbers by providing people with inspiring and high quality experiences about the key events and developments in our history.”

The HLF has today also awarded initial support for National Museums Scotland’s (NMS) bid for a £4.8m grant to implement the next phase of its £11.85m redevelopment project.

Gordon Rintoul, director of NMS, said: “This grant will enable us to move forward in creating a further eight new galleries, opening up access for everybody to our outstanding national collections of science and European art.”

The three other bids to receive HLF initial support are: Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent (£4.5m); Norton Priory in Cheshire (£3.9m); and Gunnersbury Park Museum in London (£3.8m).